"We have to go up before we go down"
Of all the strange words in this sentence, I don't know what the
weirdest, most frightening, and most annoying are, but ladies and
gentlemen and soldiers and children, this is your president, and this
is how he thinks--according to the Washington Post, this sentence will
be the theme of his speech tonight. Of course, the eye travels first to
"go down". We will go down, and he knows it. The going down is
inevitable. Of course, the first idea that leaps to mind is "go down in
flames." Yes. He knows that, too. But for George W. Bush, it's better
that more American soldiers (not to mention Iraqis) go down in flames
(and explosions and gunfire and rocket attacks) than that he follow any
of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (also in the article,
the following quote, "Some staff members on the National Security
Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in
part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton.") The
knowledge that Bush will do anything rather than appear to accept
advice is right there in the "have to". Can you imagine what it's like
to be this man, someone so rigid and fragile that there are no choices?
That as soon as someone else makes a suggestion, no matter how
reasonable it is, that idea is off the table? One's life would
constantly be narrowing to to a very small set of possibilities, or
even just one possibility--if Bush doesn't seem to himself to have
originated an idea, then he can't act on that idea, and the less
successful his own ideas are, the more he is wedded to them. This is a
recipe for disaster, and in fact it has created one disaster after
another, and not only in Iraq. He is wedded to the idea that he owes no
consideration to the rights of anyone in the US other than himself, and
that is a constitutional disaster right there (in my opinion, a bigger
disaster even than Iraq).
Then there's the "we". Is that a royal "we"? In fact, most of us (83%
according to today's poll) don't think we have to go up before we go
down. "We" think it's better just to leave Iraq in an orderly way. I
don't like being put in any group ("we") with this man. It gives me the
creeps. HIs "we" is oily and unsavory, just as it is whenever he uses
the words "the American people". Makes you want to run for the exit.
There is no realistic way that George Bush could possibly use the word
"we", but when he does, no doubt he has a delusional sense that there
is someone in his cohort besides himself. What he really means is
"you"--you troops have to go up before you go down (there's that down
again, as in "man down!").
"Go up." "Go up" is a nice idea, but it is followed immediately, in
the president's own mind, with the word "before". Going up is only
temporary. Going up is for now. And going up is essential to going
down. If "we" did not "go up" then "before" wouldn't kick in and
neither would "going down", really. Going up before we go down is the
expectation of futility, of tragedy, of chickens coming home to roost.
This is how your very own president thinks. His motto is "Try and stop
me." Ours should be, "stop him now."